The Ghosts of Parties Past

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Guests at a Studio 54 New Year’s Eve party from back in the day included Halston, Bianca Jagger, Jack Haley, Jr., Liza Minnelli and Andy Warhol.CreditCreditRobin Platzer/The LIFE Images Collection, via Getty Images

By Keith Williams

Dec. 27, 2017

Q. I want to throw an epic New Year’s party. Where can I look for inspiration?

A. That all depends on your taste, of course: the city’s history is filled with legendary parties, from Gilded Age opulence to its quaalude-fueled orgies during the disco era.

On the lavish end of the scale, there are events like the 1897 Bradley-Martin Ball, a 28-course dinner for which the Waldorf Astoria was turned into the Palace of Versailles and guests dressed as historical figures. Caroline Schermerhorn Astor went as Mary, Queen of Scots; her costume included $200,000 worth of jewelry.

“One guest wore a stuffed cat as a hat, and Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt appeared as an electric light, with a built-in light bulb attached to her Worth gown,” he wrote in an email. Dinner was not served until 2 a.m., and guests consumed an estimated $1 million worth of champagne, using today’s values.

“I salute the cheerful vulgarity of the Vanderbilts and the way they bulldozed their way into high society,” Mr. Foulkes added.

Louise Mirrer, the chief executive and president of the New-York Historical Society, would have attended her organization’s centennial dinner in 1904, held at the legendary Delmonico’s. The event was “uniquely ‘New York’ — located at a restaurant that virtually defined fine dining for the nation,” she wrote. There was one detail that Dr. Mirrer would have changed, however: the guest list. It consisted of 200 men, save a few dozen “ladies,” who were relegated to the balcony.

Fred Plotkin, the opera and Italian cuisine expert, was less specific as to his preference, selecting any party thrown by George Gershwin at his Riverside Drive penthouse.

“He would sit at the piano and improvise, starting with his own melodies and then riffing on Ravel, Stravinsky or Sousa,” Mr. Plotkin wrote, noting that guests tended to be “fascinating individuals” in the fields of music, acting and literature.

“I would have happily attended any of these, especially when Kitty was there,” he wrote, referring to the performer Kitty Carlisle Hart, who would be “singing operetta one moment and enchanting guests the next with a clever, yet always affectionate, quip.”

Michael Miscione, the Manhattan borough historian, would have gone to two parties the night of December 31, 1897, the eve of the consolidation of Greater New York City.

The second was across the East River, at Brooklyn City Hall — an event with a much different atmosphere. City leaders “were holding a ceremony that some cynics were calling a funeral,” he wrote. (Even today, some Brooklynites still refer to the consolidation as “the great mistake of 1898.”)

Last, but certainly not least, we heard from Sylvana Durrett, the co-founder and chief executive of Maisonette.com, who since 2009 has planned the Met Gala. She would have attended Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball, the 1966 masquerade that has been referred to as “The Party of the Century.”

“It was so iconic and just an incredible window into the era and the people of the city,” Ms. Durrett wrote.